1984 Academy Awards® Winners and History A Passage to India (1984, UK) Places in the Heart (1984) A Soldier's Story (1984) Actor: F. MURRAY ABRAHAM in "Amadeus", Jeff Bridges in "Starman", Albert Finney in "Under the Volcano", Tom Hulce in "Amadeus", Sam Waterston in "The Killing Fields" Actress: SALLY FIELD in "Places in the Heart", Judy Davis in "A Passage to India", Jessica Lange in "Country", Vanessa Redgrave in "The Bostonians", Sissy Spacek in "The River" Supporting Actor: HAING S.

NGOR in "The Killing Fields" , Adolph Caesar in "A Soldier's Story", John Malkovich in "Places in the Heart", Noriyuki "Pat" Morita in "The Karate Kid", Ralph Richardson in "Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes" Supporting Actress: PEGGY ASHCROFT in "A Passage to India", Glenn Close in "The Natural", Lindsay Crouse in "Places in the Heart", Christine Lahti in "Swing Shift", Geraldine Page in "The Pope of Greenwich Village" Director: MILOS FORMAN for "Amadeus", Woody Allen for "Broadway Danny Rose", Robert Benton for "Places in the Heart", Roland Joffe for "The Killing Fields" , David Lean for "A Passage to India" Most of the nominations-totals for 1984's Best Picture nominees were very close, and two 'prestige' pictures were tied for eleven nominations each: Amadeus - eleven Places in the Heart - seven A Soldier's Story - three Ultimately, the 1984 awards were monopolized by Amadeus with eight wins, the Saul Zaentz-produced, Milos Forman-directed film.

The musical biopic/epic won the following awards: Best Picture, Best Actor (F. Murray Abraham), Best Director, Best Screenplay Adaptation (Peter Shaffer for the transformation of his own Broadway/London stage hit), Best Art/Set Direction, Best Sound, Best Costume Design, and Best Makeup. It became the 7th film in Oscar history to win eight Oscars. The Best Picture winner was visually and musically superior and focused on the court rivalry between flamboyant, genius composer (and scatologically-obsessed buffoon) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the less-talented, intensely-jealous Antonio Salieri, both composers for Hapsburg Emperor Joseph II. The other Best Picture nominees included strong contenders: British director David Lean's A Passage to India - the film was an imposing, triumphant return to the screen (and last picture) for the 76 year-old director (known for his two Best Director awards for The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962) ).

The lavish epic film (with eleven nominations and two wins - for Best Supporting Actress (Peggy Ashcroft) and Best Original Score - for Maurice Jarre - his third Oscar for a David Lean film) was based on E. M.

Forster's 1924 novel about the romantic adventures of a young Englishwoman writer/director Robert Benton's Places in the Heart (with seven nominations and two wins - Best Actress and Best Screenplay by Benton himself), was based on the director's own childhood memories in Waxahachie, Texas where a young widow attempts to save her farm producer David Puttnam's and director Roland Jaffe's The Killing Fields (with seven nominations and three wins - Best Supporting Actor, Best Cinematography (Chris Menges), and Best Film Editing), was based on the experiences of NY Times correspondent Sydney Schanberg during the Cambodian civil war and the country's take-over by the Khymer Rouge; three years earlier, producer David Puttnam's Chariots of Fire (1981) had won Best Picture director Norman Jewison's A Soldier's Story (with three nominations and no wins) was a murder mystery/drama based on Charles Fuller's 1981 Pulitzer Prize-winning play about racial hatred in a segregated, all-black Southern Army Camp during World War II Milos Forman's second Oscar win as director for Amadeus was a follow-up to his successful collaboration with Saul Zaentz nine years earlier in One Flew Over

 The Cuckoo's Nest (1975) , a five Oscar winner.

Director Norman Jewison was the only director of a Best Picture nominee who was denied a Best Director Oscar nomination for A Soldier's Story. His spot was taken by Woody Allen for Broadway Danny Rose (with two nominations and no wins), a film about a legendarily hapless talent agent. David Lean was nominated as Best Director, and for Best Screenplay Adaptation and Best Editor for A Passage to India, but he failed to win any of the awards. The two winners of the lead and supporting actor Oscars were basically unknowns - and both won for their first nomination! The Best Actor award was won by F. Murray Abraham (with his sole career nomination and Oscar) in his remarkable role as Antonio Salieri, a jealous, mediocre court composer who is consumed and made insane by his distaste for a rival composer, 26 year-old prodigy Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Amadeus. [Abraham was the first actor of Arab descent to win the Best Actor Oscar.] Another nominee was the title role character in the same film, played by Tom Hulce (with his sole career nomination).

The other three Best Actor nominees were: Albert Finney (with his fourth nomination, and second consecutive Best Actor nod) as self-destructive alcoholic Geoffrey Firmin drinking himself to death in the shadow of a Mexican volcano in director John Huston's Under the Volcano (with two nominations and no wins) Sam Waterston (with his first nomination) as Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist Sidney Schanberg in The Killing Fields Jeff Bridges (with his third nomination) as the alien extra-terrestrial in director John Carpenter's science fiction/love story, Starman (the film's sole nomination) With her second Best Actress nomination, Sally Field won her second Oscar for her moving performance (her first was for a similar role in Norma Rae (1979)) as a 1930s depression-era penniless Texas farm widow of a murdered policeman, the determined, indomitable Edna Spaulding who must face a bank foreclosure, a greedy cotton-dealer, and a tornado, in Places In The Heart.

She has become the best-remembered and most-quoted Oscar winner ever (with the possible exception of James Cameron's declaration, "I'm the King of the World" for Titanic (1997)), with her exclamatory, infamous speech after the win: "The first time (referring to her Best Actress win for Norma Rae (1979) five years earlier) I didn't feel it, but this time I feel it. And I can't deny the fact you like me - right now, you like me!

You really like me!" Field joined two of the other Best Actress nominees who were also playing strong matriarchal roles as rural women/farmers who found themselves in life-death struggles to keep their properties in male-dominated, chauvinistic circumstances: Jessica Lange (with her third nomination) as 1980s Iowa farm-wife Jewell Ivy struggling to hold on to the farm during foreclosure proceedings in Country (the film's sole nomination) Sissy Spacek (with her fourth nomination) as a member of a farming family battling a severe storm, floods, and foreclosure in director Mark Rydell's The River The other two Best Actress nominees in the category were: Vanessa Redgrave (with her fifth nomination - her fourth unsuccessful Best Actress nomination, out of a career total of six nominations) as suffragette Olive Chancellor in the film adaptation of Henry James' novel by director James Ivory, The Bostonians (with two nominations and no wins) Australian actress Judy Davis (with her first nomination) as the young Englishwoman Adela Quested in the film adaptation of Forster's novel about sexual repression and racial prejudice in early 20th century India, A Passage to India Among the five Best Supporting Actor nominees, three were first-time movie performers.

The Best Supporting Actor winner was Cambodian native Haing S. Ngor (a non-professional actor in his film debut who actually survived Cambodia's horrors) as a Cambodian refugee doctor and advisor/interpreter Dith Pran for a photojournalist (Sam Waterston) who miraculously survives the horrors and tortures of war and Pol Pot's regime in producer David Puttnam's British film The Killing Fields . Ngor became the first Asian performer to win a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. [Tragically, he was murdered 12 years later in February of 1996 by a gang of drug dealers in a Los Angeles parking garage.] The losing nominees for Best Supporting Actor were: John Malkovich (with his first nomination in his debut film) as the blind boarder Mr. Will in Places in the Heart Adolph Caesar (with his first and sole nomination, and his film debut) as the tough and hated black drill Sgt. Waters who is murdered and the subject of an investigation in A Soldier's Story [A year later, Caesar died of a heart attack on the set of the Kirk Douglas-Burt Lancaster film Tough Guys (1986)].

Noriyuki 'Pat' Morita (with his first nomination) as sage Japanese handyman/karate tutor Miyagi in director John Avildsen's The Karate Kid (the film's sole nomination) Ralph Richardson (with his second unsuccessful nomination and in his final film role) as Tarzan's eccentric grandfather - the 6th Lord of Greystoke - in director Hugh Hudson's Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (with three nominations and no wins - and faithful to the classic Edgar Rice Burroughs pulp books). [Richardson died on October 10, 1983, just before he would have learned that he was nominated for the Best Supporting Oscar.] [Note: Writer Robert Towne used the name of his sheepdog P.H. Vazak for the screenwriter credit - and received a nomination -- an Academy first!] Talented British stage actress Peggy Ashcroft (with her only nomination and Oscar win) won the Best Supporting Actress award as Judy Davis' prospective mother-in-law Mrs. Moore, a Raj matron in frail health in A Passage to India.

[At the age of 77, Ashcroft's win made her the oldest winner of the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in Academy history.] The other four nominees were: Geraldine Page (with her seventh unsuccessful nomination of a total of eight career nominations) - as a corrupt policeman's mother in The Pope of Greenwich Village; with this nomination, Page joined both Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole as the most nominated performers in Academy history with no Oscar wins; however she went on to win Best Actress the following year for The Trip to Bountiful (1985) Christine Lahti (with her first nomination) as Goldie Hawn's neighbor Hazel Zanussi in the 1940s-era romance - director Jonathan Demme's Swing Shift (the film's sole nomination) Glenn Close (with her third consecutive nomination) as Iris (Robert Redford's virtuous childhood sweetheart and naive girlfriend) in the film adaptation of Bernard Malamud's novel about the world's greatest baseball player, director Barry Levinson's fairy tale The Natural Lindsay Crouse (with her first nomination) as Margaret Lomax (the sister of Sally Field's character) in Places in the Heart This year, all five nominees for Best Original Song were well

-known radio hits, something fairly rare.

Stevie Wonder won for his song "I Just Called to Say I Love You," from the film The Woman in Red, thereby becoming the first blind Academy Award winner. The Best Song category was fiercely competitive, with nominees including Phil Collins' title song ("Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)") from Against All Odds (its sole nomination), two nominations from Footloose (for "Footloose" and "Let's Hear It For the Boy"), and the title song from Ghostbusters . This year's honoree with an Honorary Oscar was the venerable James Stewart, who had won a Best Actor Oscar forty-four years earlier for The Philadelphia Story (1940) - his only win out of five Best Actor career nominations (he had also been nominated in 1939, 1946, 1950, and 1959). He was honord for "his fifty years of memorable performances. For his high ideals both on and off the screen.

With the respect and affection of his colleagues." Oscar Snubs and Omissions: Writer/director James Cameron's low-budget, science-fiction action film The Terminator - with Arnold Schwarzenegger as the threatening, leather-clad cyborg, and Linda Hamilton as the rescued Sarah Connor by Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) was entirely absent from any awards categories. So was Australian director Paul Cox's touching yet kinky Man of Flowers, as was writer/director/star Rob Reiner's quasi-documentary spoof This Is Spinal Tap about an aging British heavy metal band. And Sergio Leone's final film, Once Upon a Time In America, went completely unnominated, with its lead performances by Robert DeNiro (as 'Noodles') and James Woods (as 'Max') as childhood friends/rivals spanning four decades, Elizabeth McGovern's supporting role as Deborah, and Ennio Morricone's score. Its neglect by Academy voters was attributed to a disastrous studio cut which severely truncated the film -- had the original nearly four hour running time version been released, the film might have been given far more consideration.

Tri-Star, a new studio, released its first film - Barry Levinson's sports drama The Natural, with four unsuccessful nominations - Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, and Best Supporting Actress. And the biggest box-office earner of the year, Beverly Hills Cop , with Eddie Murphy in a star-making role as Axel Foley, was overlooked. Although Jeff Bridges received a Best Actor nomination (the film's sole nomination), director/co-screenwriter John Carpenter's Starman was neglected in these other categories: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Karen Allen as Jenny Hayden), Best Supporting Actor (Charles Martin Smith as scientist Mark Shermin), Best Original Score (Jack Nitzsche) and Best Original Screenplay. [Bridges' nomination was the only nomination ever given to any of John Carpenter's films.] British director and co-writer Michael Radford's faithfully-adapted Nineteen Eighty-Four was also overlooked in all categories with zero nominations, bypassing performances by John Hurt (as Winston Smith), Richard Burton (as O'Brien), and Suzanna Hamilton (as Julia), and the cinematography of acclaimed Roger Deakins.

Many other actors were denied award opportunities: Robert Englund in a unique, infamous, otherworldly role as burn victim terrorizer Freddy Krueger in Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street (with no nominations) Victor Banerjee as Dr. Aziz in A Passage to India Steve Martin as mind-body switched lawyer Roger Cobb (possessed by his dying wealthy client Lily Tomlin) in director Carl Reiner's All of Me Howard E. Rollins, Jr. as black investigating officer Capt. Davenport and Denzel Washington as Pfc. Peterson in Norman Jewison's A Soldier's Story Keir Dullea in a difficult reprise of his 2001 Dave Bowman role and Bob Balaban as Dr. Chandra in 2010 (with five unsuccessful nominations) George Burns in a dual role as God and the Devil in the third (and final) film of the series - Oh God! You Devil (with no nominations) Tom Hanks as Allen Bauer and Daryl Hannah as mermaid Madison in director Ron Howard's Splash two actors in the Coen Brothers' un-nominated debut film - a modern day film noir titled Blood Simple - M.

Emmet Walsh as sleazy private detective Visser and Dan Hedaya as repugnant Texas strip-bar owner Julian Marty Kathleen Turner as romance novelist Joan Wilder in the entertaining action-adventure film Romancing the Stone and as prostitute China Blue in Ken Russell's violent and sexually-explicit Crimes of Passion Taxi TV sitcom star Danny DeVito's star-making role as diminutive, foul-mouthed, sarcastic Brooklyn mobster Ralph in Romancing the Stone Molly Ringwald as alienated, teenaged high school student Samantha Baker in director John Hughes' debut film Sixteen Candles Lesley Ann Warren as small bar owner Eve in Alan Rudolph's romantic comedy/drama Choose Me Elizabeth Berridge as Constanze Mozart, and Jeffrey Jones as Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II in Amadeus Mia Farrow - unrecognizable as Tina Vitale, a NJ mobster moll in Broadway Danny Rose Robert Preston (in his last major film role and screen appearance) as intergalactic, alien recruiter Centauri (modeled after his Harold Hill character in The Music Man (1962)) in The Last Starfighter Like TRON (1982) two years earlier, the innovative CGI effects of The Last Starfighter, with its use of CGI to replace model

 miniatures for all its spaceship shots -- were overlooked.

Ivan Reitman's Ghostbusters was nominated in two categories (without winning either): Best Song (Ray Parker, Jr.) and Best Visual Effects. It should have been recognized in other categories as well - Best Actor (Bill Murray), Best (Supp.) Actress (Sigourney Weaver), Best Original Screenplay (Aykroyd, Ramis, and Torokvei), Best Production Design (John De Cuir), and Best Cinematography (Laszlo Kovacs and Herb Wagreitch). Super Reviewer ½ When I reviewed A Royal Affair last year, I spoke about the two big challenges that any period or costume drama has to overcome. One is the reputation of the genre as one obsessed with surface rather than substance, and clothing rather then character development. The other is the issue of pacing, needing to capture an historical period with its slower technology and pace of life whilst also needed to tell a story at an endurable pace for modern audiences. While Nikolaj Arcel's film ultimately came through both tests with flying colours, Amadeus is only a partial success.

It's an overly long film of two halves, which begins as silly and as frothy as one can get, and ends as something of a weighty, murky drama containing compelling ideas. It is as sumptuous as it is silly, and irritating as it is intriguing, but it does ultimately come through with the goods before it has completely overstayed its welcome. Before we get to the meat and drink of Amadeus, it's worth taking a moment to address the issue of historical accuracy. It's something which can be boring to talk about, and which is often dragged up to discredit a film as it tries to garner awards. We can all think of examples of films which blatantly and consciously distort the truth, such as U-571, which credits the Americans, not the British, with cracking the Enigma code. But while capturing period detail should be praised on a technical level, historical accuracy is not a sign or guarantee of a good story. Film is a narrative medium, and with subjective allowances for taste and respect for an audience's intelligence, telling a good story is more important than getting the facts right.

In the case of Amadeus, we are confronted with a story which is at best a long-discredited theory and at worst an utter fabrication. There is little or no evidence to suggest that Antonio Salieri was responsible for the death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; the fact that he taught one of Mozart's sons would suggest that they were actually on friendly, or at least respectful, terms. But neither the film nor Peter Shaffer's play have historical accuracy as their prime motive. Both are more interested in telling a story about how rivalry manifests itself, and the relationship genius has with a world either not ready for it or unwilling to accommodate it. The question that follows is whether Mozart's life is the right vehicle for this kind of story, whose ruthless, scheming character might be more suited to a political thriller. When The Iron Lady was released, the director Phyllida Lloyd said she had wanted to make a film about dealing with age - the obvious criticism being that she could have told that story without making a biopic of Margaret Thatcher. In this case, however, Mozart is the ideal topic or vessel for this kind of story.

His reputation and character fit closely with our cultural notions of what genius is, allowing Shaffer and director Milo Forman to get on with the storytelling. While the story itself is not problematic (at least not as a piece of entertainment), the storytelling in Amadeus is perhaps its biggest problem. The opening scenes look absolutely gorgeous: Miroslav Ond?í?ek, who worked with Lindsay Anderson on If...., pulls the audience in with a series of elegant, painterly images. But once the credits end and the action moves indoors, everything becomes very stagey. The framing device of the elderly Salieri, relating his story to a priest in the asylum, is not successful, and the film works better the less it is employed. For most of its first hour, in either of its cuts, Amadeus is essentially a silly, frothy, overblown costume drama. It is far more interested in the costumes, the huge wigs and the pompous characters that wear them than it is in the creation of the music or the personalities behind it. The film employs broad comedy, usually in the form of fart jokes, and its recreation of opera is completely ridiculous.

It doesn't have the grace or the understatement of Barry Lyndon, and makes you appreciate the comparative meatiness of The Madness of King George. Matters aren't helped in this regard by the annoying nature of the central character. Tom Hulce, a graduate of Animal House, is a good actor who clearly threw himself into the part: having never played piano before, he practised for more than four hours a day upon landing the role. But while his skills are not in doubt, his Mozart is one of the most annoying and excruciating characters outside of an Adam Sandler comedy. Just as we aren't supposed to hate Salieri, so we are not expected to entirely like Mozart. But all his juvenile qualities are overplayed and repeated ad nauseum: it's not so much "too many notes" as too many laughs. As a result of both the framing device and the juvenile tone, we spend the first hour distant from our main characters. We are distant from Mozart because he's an irritating little twit, and we are distant from Salieri because his narration keeps interrupting the action. As a result the jealousy and scheming on the latter's part feels like a deliberate plot device rather than a natural result of their relationship.

The words are still pleasant on the ear, but you are left wishing that Shaffer could write more like his namesake Anthony Shaffer, creator of Sleuth. About halfway in, specifically the section concerning Don Giovanni, Amadeus begins to pick itself up and grab its core themes by the scruff of the neck. The death of Mozart's father, and the composer's accompanying decline into illness, give the film not only a darker tone but a depth that it didn't have before. The serious reaction to a tragic event gives the film more credibility: by taking the matter seriously, it allows us to take the characters more seriously and for Salieri's subsequent actions to carry more weight. The film merits a comparison in this regard with Rush, Ron Howard's thrilling drama about the rivalry between James Hunt and Niki Lauda. Both stories concern a rivalry between two talented men, but this rivalry is initially presented in a broad, overly playful way; the film is still entertaining, but we are conscious of how little is going on between its ears. Then something dark or unfortunate happens to one of the men which gives the drama a stake and the rivalry a meaning.

Going dark is by no means a guarantee of a good story, but in both cases it is just what the films needed. The main theme which this dark turn enables to unfold is the conflict between genius and mediocrity, and how graceless the two can be. Mozart's genius is confronted by mediocrity on all sides - from Salieri, whose position as court composer is threatened; from the Prince, who has very limited taste; and from his courtiers who don't want their power to be undermined. Neither Mozart nor Salieri conduct themselves well, with Mozart foregoing all decorum to defend his compositions, and Salieri working behind the scenes to bring about his downfall. Mozart's lack of social grace is mirrored by Salieri's lack of morals. The role of parents in Amadeus is a key one. Salieri's father discourages his son's ambitions, and his death serves as a (misplaced) vindication for Salieri, of both his Catholic faith and his musical ability. Mozart, by contrast, is spoiled rotten by his father, who recognises his abilities but struggles to contain them beyond presenting Mozart as a performing monkey.

When his father was alive but out of the picture, Mozart is free to make a name for himself in a carefree manner - but with him dead, this carefree nature gives way to a desire for atonement, which leads him to work obsessively on the unfinished Requiem. The film is also interested in Catholicism, specifically the role God has in meting out talent and answering prayer. Salieri's prayers go unrewarded since he is asking God for the wrong things in the wrong way, seeking to curse rather than love his enemies. At the end of the film, he comments that "God killed Mozart" rather than let him share in any part of his talent, including the transcription of the Requiem. While the film's theological understanding of gifts is not entirely sound, it is an interesting lens through which to view and depict jealousy. Much of the success of Amadeus lies in its music. Even in its weaker first half the music is wonderfully produced, conveying to us how great Mozart was instead of having people simply state his greatness, as in Gandhi. More importantly, Forman does succeed in making the creative process of writing and composing both cinematic and exciting.

In one really special moment, Salieri flips through Mozart's portfolio, and hears the music on the page perfectly formed in his head. It's a wonderful moment which F. Murray Abraham superbly executes, keeping his character on a tightrope between envy and euphoria. Amadeus is a film of two distinct halves, with the virtues of its substantial second eventually winning out over the frothy excesses of its first. Once you get past the costumes, the wigs and the irritating laughter, it does become an interesting, memorable cinematic venture with a brace of pretty good performances. It doesn't quite deserve the reputation that won it the Best Picture Oscar, but among even that select group of films, you could do a hell of a lot worse. Daniel Mumby Super Reviewer By bouts hilariously witty, nerve-wrackingly tense and profoundly moving, all the while beautifully shot and thoughtfully put together. An astounding achievement. Full review later. Thomas Bowler Amadeus (1984) | The Film Spectrum Amadeus, Amadeus!

Oh oh oh, Amadeus.” When one-hit-wonder Falco topped the pop charts with “Rock Me Amadeus” in 1985, it came just months after Milos Forman’s Amadeus won the Oscar for Best Picture. The film — and the song — were 20th century revivals of 18th-century genius, exploring the mind and work of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, perhaps the greatest musical influence in the history of Western culture. When it came time for Laurence Olivier to announce the Best Picture result, the acting legend shocked the Academy by skipping the nominees and immediately saying, “The winner is Amadeus.” Nothing more needed to be said. The film dominated the night with eight Oscars, including Best Actor (F. Murray Abraham), Director (Forman) and Screenplay (Peter Shaffer from his own play). Even the least of movie buffs know this, thanks to Last Action Hero (1993), where a young boy warns Arnold Schwarzenegger that Abraham can not be trusted: “He killed Mozart! … Amadeus! It won eight Oscars!” Voted No.

73 on the WGA’s 101 Greatest Screenplays , one spot ahead of Charlie Kaufman’s Being John Malkovich (1999), Shaffer’s tale follows Mozart’s meteoric life, from enfante terrible to a young death at age 35. While his death was recorded as “severe miliary fever,” the film explores rumors that Mozart was poisoned, introducing the idea of a jealous rival possibly having killed the boy wonder. That rival is Antonio Salieri (Abraham), an accomplished Austrian composer who attempts suicide in the film’s opening scene, screaming, “Mozart! Forgive your assassin! I confess, I killed you!” This leaves viewers to ponder the guilt one would carry if responsible for killing a musical genius and robbing history of years of great music (i.e. Mark David Chapman, who killed John Lennon). At this point in his life, Salieri is sore that God has kept him alive to see his own work disappear into history, while that of Mozart lives on in fame.

Salieri’s confession becomes the film’s narrative, detailing in flashback his own rise as a musician, only to be overshadowed by the natural talent of Mozart (Tom Hulce), a musical prodigy the likes of which had never been seen. Against expectation, the legendary figure is presented as immature, womanizing and ridiculous — all salt in the wound to a serious artist like Salieri. The dagger comes in 1781, when Mozart is invited to meet with the Emperor, an event for which Salieri slaves to prepare a “March of Welcome.” Upon hearing the tune, Mozart hops onto the piano and, within seconds, transforms Salieri’s piece into the “Non più andrai” march from his opera, The Marriage of Figaro — you know, the opera Andy Dufresne plays over the prison speakers in The Shawshank Redemption (1994). At this point, Salieri falls into a deep spiritual crisis, devastated by his own inferiority, his own blocked route to immortality and, most of all, what he sees to be an unjust distribution of God-given talent.

“Why would God choose an obscene child to be His instrument?” Soon, Salieri comes to believe God is mocking him through the miraculous Mozart, and in an attempt to turn the tables on God Himself, hatches a scheme to get one last great work out of Mozart just before killing him. The tragic role is an obvious winner for Abraham, who plays a legendary screen figure filled with pride, envy, bitterness, self-loathing, God-hating and ultimate guilt. While his character was forced to play second fiddle to Mozart, Abraham took front and center, beating Hulce for Best Actor. Hulce’s casting was a shock to some, as he was best known at the time as Pinto from Animal House (1978). He flips expectations and plays the highbrow artist as a lowbrow imbecile, giggling and dirty-minded with pink-tinted wigs and an over-the-top laugh. Such a portrayal reminds us that many of history’s heroes may have in fact been idiosyncratic pains in the ass. Amadeus does its best to show all sides of Mozart, as both an artist ahead of his time and one hindered by his own excesses.

Ironically, it’s Hulce’s lighthearted performance that gloriously saves the film from being pretentious, a welcome surprise for casual viewers who may be wary to sit through a three-hour biopic about classical music. In other words, the silly folly keeps the film as appealing to the average moviegoer as it does to the elite. That said, the three-hour runtime and extended opera numbers may prove challenging for some viewers. As Salieri says to a bewildered Mozart, explaining the Emperor’s yawn during his opera: “The poor man can’t concentrate for more than an hour. You gave him four.” The inaccessible proof is in the box office pudding. Amadeus never entered the weekend box office Top 5 — the same fate as The English Patient (1996) — and peaked at #6 in its eighth weekend. This may be because the film refuses to compromise its high brow radiance, nor should it. For each mainstream “yawn,” there will be plenty of us, who call the work “marvelous,” as Salieri does. Perhaps Amadeus is as accessible as it can be.

Those who wish to dismiss it as too long, too serious, too artsy — they’re missing the point. Viewers should appreciate Forman’s attempt to humanize his characters, his propensity for humor, his knack for tragedy and the smoothness at which he transitions from Mozart flashbacks to Salieri’s latter-day confession, marrying the two in voice-over and music. This is best achieved during the recreation of history’s first performance of Don Giovanni, with Salieri explaining the “beyond the grave” significance of the piece. We as viewers are transported inside the mind of Salieri, viewing Mozart as both an idol and a nemesis, but always dominant in those slightly low-angle shots of him conducting the orchestra, arms waving in front of a packed house. Forman has had a long history with Oscar long before coming to Hollywood, earning Best Foreign Language nominations for his Czech dramedies Loves of a Blonde (1965) and The Fireman’s Ball (1967).

A few years later, he made his career masterpiece, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest (1975), winning Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay — a feat only matched by It Happened One Night (1934) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991). And yet, his most ambitious and assured film as a pure director is Amadeus, which harnesses an unrivaled pageantry that brings 1700s Vienna to life. The film is filled with the spaciousness of Oscar-winning sets, the lavishness of Oscar-winning costumes, and the precision of Oscar-winning makeup, used to create Mozart’s ailing appearance, ailed in a way indicative of the time period. Still, beyond all the visual glory, Forman’s greatest asset is the ever-present bliss of Mozart’s music, each piece perfectly chosen for the scene it accompanies. Never before, nor since, has classical music been better applied to cinematic images. Amadeus features no original score, because it already has something better — the original compositions of Mozart himself. For those wanting a lesson in some of the most beautiful music ever written, pop in this one, or better yet, buy the soundtrack.

The music lays gently across your ears, fills up your soul and takes you to other places. Its music everyone will know, if not by title, then by sound. You’re guaranteed to know “Symphony No. 25 in g minor, K 183, 1st movement.” You’ll also recognize his “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (Serenade), K 525, 1st movement.” I dare you not to feel the power of “Requiem Dies Irae.” Close your eyes and listen to “The Magic Flute.” Do the same for “Requiem Lachrymosa.” And prepare to be swept away by “Die Entfuhrun Aus Dem Serail.” Each of us will have a different favorite Mozart piece. But that’s the beauty of music. It can touch each person in a different way, or it can touch everyone collectively in the same way. Amadeus is a celebration of that fact, of music, of expression, of spirit, of life. The film is an opus of music, dramatic narrative and aesthetics, a true credit to the potential of cinema. The contribution of Amadeus to film history is no little one.

Just 13 years after its release, the American Film Institute placed it #53 on its original Top 100 list. However, in its 10th Anniversary list in 2007, Amadeus was nowhere to be found. Its fall does not speak to the film’s lack of durability — it remains the same picture today as it was in 1984 — but it does speak to the film’s decline in pop culture standing. Still, Amadeus remains the very best of its kind, a work of profound inspiration and superb control. No matter how many musical biopics follow — Loretta Lynn’s Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980), Ritchie Valens’ La Bamba (1987), Tina Turner’s What’s Love Got to Do With it (1993), Ray Charles’ Ray (2004) or Johnny Cash’s Walk the Line (2005) — one movie remains king of them all. As the tagline pronounced: “Amadeus. The man. The music. The magic. The madness. The murder. The mystery. The motion picture.” This entry was posted in Reviews . Bookmark the permalink . F.

Murray Abraham's Oscar Speech for Best Actor - YouTube F. Murray Abraham's Oscar Speech for Best Actor Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Published on Jul 8, 2015 F. Murray Abraham delivers his oscar speech for his role in the 1984 film Amadeus. Category RIP Peter Shaffer: 5 Fast Facts You Need To Know | Heavy.com Get Heavy's Top 5 News Stories Every Day We will never share your email address. RIP Peter Shaffer: 5 Fast Facts You Need To Know Published 6:47 pm EST, June 6, 2016 Updated 8:48 pm EST, June 6, 2016 Comments closed By Daniel S. Levine Share Tweet Share Email Follow (Getty) Peter Shaffer, the acclaimed British playwright best known for Equus and Amadeus, died on Monday. He was 90 years old. Shaffer’s work was beloved in both the U.K.

and the U.S. and his best-known works became films. He won Tony Awards for Equus and Amadeus, as well as an Oscar for penning the adapted screenplay for the 1984 film version. The playwright’s death was announced by his agent, Rupert Lord , who said that Shaffer died in Ireland. He traveled there to celebrate his 90th birthday. He died at a hospice in County Cork with his neice at his side. His longtime American agent, Dennis Aspland, was also with him. “He had been struggling with his health for some time but was both determined and delighted to have been able to celebrate his 90th birthday in Ireland last month with close family and friends,” Lord said. Here’s what you need to know about Shaffer’s incredible career. 1. His Plays Are Still Performed Daniel Radcliffe in ‘Equus’ on the London stage in 2007 (Getty) Equus and Amadeus are such towering works of theater that they are still performed. Equus was famously revived on Broadway in 2008 with Daniel Radcliffe in his first stage role since leaving Harry Potter.

The National Theatre in England is planning a revival of Amadeus in October. Equus opened in London in 1973 and in New York in 1974, with Anthony Hopkins and Peter Firth, notes The New York Times . Amadeus opened in 1979 in London and 1980 in New York. Ian McKellen and Tim Curry starred in the first Broadway production. It was last revived on Broadway in 1999 with David Suchet and Michael Sheen. 2. Twin Brother was Also a Successful Playwright Shaffer’s twin was Anthony Shaffer and the two were born in Liverpool on May 15, 1926. The two wrote mystery novels together under the pen name Peter Anthony. Although Anthony had an interest in law, he became a playwright too. His most famous work is Sleuth (1971), which also won the Tony for best play and, like his brother’s famous works, became a movie. Anthony died in 2001. Shaffer is survived by his other brother, Brian, two nephews and two nieces. 3.

Won an Oscar for ‘Amadeus’ Milos Foreman’s 1984 film version of Amadeus was one of those rare films that was instantly hailed and nearly swept the Academy Awards for that year. It went on to win eight, including Adapted Screenplay for Shaffer. The film also won Best Picture and Best Director. F. Murray Abraham won the Best Actor Oscar for playing Salieri and Tom Hulce was nominated for playing Mozart. Shaffer also earned a nomination for his script to Equus. Directed by Sidney Lumet, the 1977 film also earned nominations for Peter Firth’s Supporting Performance and Richard Burton as Best Actor. The plays Five Finger Exercise, The Royal Hunt of the Sun and The Public Eye also became films. 4. Won Two Tony Awards (Getty) Shaffer won two Tony Awards: 1975 Best Play for Equus and 1981 Best Play for Amadeus. He did earn a nomination in 1967 for Black Comedy and another in 1990 for Lettice and Lovage. After that 1990 play, Shaffer only wrote two more.

His last play was 1992’s The Gift of the Gorgon. Shaffer also won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle award for Best Foreign Play in 1959 for his first big success, Five Finger Exercise. Equus won the group’s Best Play award in 1975. Surprisingly, Amadeus was the runner-up for the Best Play award in 1981. 5. Knighted by the Queen Shaffer received the Commander of the British Empire (CBE) honor in 1987 and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2001. He’s also a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame. “Peter Shaffer was one of the great writers of his generation and the National Theatre was enormously lucky to have had such a fruitful and creative relationship with him. The plays he leaves behind are an enduring legacy,” National Theatre director Rufus Norris, told the Guardian . Is Oscar cursed? - Film - Entertainment - theage.com.au Is Oscar cursed? Cursed: Gwyneth Paltrow. Photo: AP It's awards season in Hollywood, with all red carpets leading to the Oscars.

But winning that prestigious award can sometimes lead to nothing more than bad roles and even oblivion. "It's known as the curse of the Oscar, which is very real. The actor's ultimate dream can turn out to be the ultimate nightmare," said movie pundit Tom O'Neil, awards columnist for the Web site The Envelope ( ). Winners like F. Murray Abraham, Brenda Fricker, Linda Hunt, Marlee Matlin and Louise Fletcher are hardly household names despite earning the film world's most coveted award. Other better-known Oscar winners, like Gwyneth Paltrow and Richard Dreyfuss, have complained that winning the award brought them personal and career troubles. "Winners from Joan Fontaine up to Gwyneth Paltrow and Richard Dreyfuss have all said it was a curse," said O'Neil, noting the Oscar made Paltrow almost too expensive to hire at the age of 26, while Dreyfuss spiraled downward for a while with a high-profile drug habit and a string of flops after his Oscar win for his role in The Goodbye Girl in 1977.

Paltrow won for her leading role in Shakespeare in Love and has said she was unequipped to cope with the pressure, leading her to make several bad choices. "I think part of the downside about being so successful and winning the Oscar at the age of 26 is that I sort of became insouciant about the things that I chose. I thought 'Oh, I'll just try this, it'll be fun or I'll do that for the money'. Things like that now I would absolutely never do," Paltrow was quoted as saying by the Internet Move Database. Louise Fletcher, who picked up the Best Actress award for her role as the inflexible Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, went on to scare up roles in such B-films as Excorcist II: The Heretic, Firestarter and Flowers in the Attic. "It'll make you wonderfully happy for a night," Fletcher has said of winning the Oscar. "But don't expect that it'll do anything for your career." Indeed, many winners seem to have sunk to new lows after Oscar victories.

Halle Berry, Faye Dunaway and Liza Minnelli have all won both the Academy Award for Best Actress and a Razzie Award, the industry's version of an Oscar lampoon that is bestowed to the worst efforts of any given year. After winning the Oscar for her turn in the 2001 film, Monster's Ball, among the first roles Berry was seen in afterwards was as a female superhero in action flick Catwoman. O'Neil said the list goes on and on, citing Oscar winners from Rita Moreno, who won for West Side Story, to Dianne Wiest and Cuba Gooding Jr, who have all struggled to recapture glory after winning an Oscar. "Sometimes people win because the stars are in alignment and the perfect actor found the perfect role at the right time, but that doesn't guarantee a lifetime of follow-ups to what may be serendipitous circumstances," said Leonard Maltin, film critic and historian with entertainment news program Entertainment Tonight. He said the phenomenon is known in Hollywood circles as the "F.

Murray Abraham syndrome," named after the well-regarded stage actor who earned the Best Actor Oscar for his role in the 1984 film Amadeus but has hardly been a big star since. "He was great in Amadeus and he's a fine actor but for whatever reason or combination of reasons, he didn't get the same opportunities again in film, although he's continued to work onstage," said Maltin, noting that Fletcher is the "poster girl" for the same phenomenon. Maltin said various factors could play a part in why some actors never follow up their Oscar success, such as bad choices, bad luck, bad agents or letting the win get to their head. "As tough as it is to make a career in the movie business, it's just as difficult to maintain one," he said. Film critic Richard Schickel said he did not view an Oscar as a viable predictor of immortality for a star or a movie. "People get carried away by a particular performance, but it doesn't mean the actor has a lot of long-term viability. The only worthwhile judge of careers is history," he said. "It's the movies that we decide we'll go back to watch a decade or so later that remain important to people.

Often a week after the Oscars ceremony, you can't even remember what won," he said. REUTERS

Question: Who won the Best Actor Oscar for his role in the 1984 film 'Amadeus'?
Answer: F Murray Abraham